If you already run a construction management platform — Procore, Causeway, Re-flow, Fieldwire, or one of the many that do the same job — you almost certainly have somewhere to store a subcontractor's insurance certificate. The question worth asking is not whether the field exists. It is what happens on the day the certificate expires.
These are good products and this is not an argument that they are badly built. It is an argument about placement. A suite is organised around the project: programmes, drawings, RFIs, site diaries, snagging. Subcontractor records sit inside that as a supporting module, because that is the honest shape of the thing they are selling. And a module inherits the assumptions of the product it sits in.
What a module assumes
Three assumptions follow from being a supporting feature rather than the point, and all three are reasonable in context.
- That a member of staff is the one entering the data. Suites are built for named, licensed, trained users. Subcontractors are usually not licensed users, so somebody internal ends up typing in what arrived by email.
- That the record is a place to put things, not a thing that acts. Storage is passive by default. Chasing a renewal is an outbound behaviour, and outbound behaviour has to be designed in deliberately.
- That compliance is scoped to a project. Suites are organised by job, which is right for a programme and wrong for a register — a subcontractor's insurance does not expire per project.
What changes when it is the whole product
SubbyFlow is a register first. There is no programme, no drawings module and no site diary, and that is the trade: what you get instead is a register that maintains itself.
The subcontractor is the one who fills it in. You pick their trade and send a link, and that choice decides which documents they are asked for. They need no account and nothing to install, which is the only reason the paperwork comes back at all. Expiry dates are tracked against every document and renewals are chased without anyone remembering to. The register is current because staying current does not depend on a person.
| What you need | Compliance as a module | SubbyFlow |
|---|---|---|
| Who enters the documents | Usually your staff | The subcontractor, through a link |
| What is asked for | A fixed set of fields | Set by trade, and by your own rules |
| When something expires | Visible if you look | Chased automatically |
| How the register is organised | By project | By subcontractor |
| Programme, drawings, RFIs, snagging | Yes | No |
| Scoring you set the weightings for | Varies | Yes |
The honest version of this comparison
If you need a programme, drawings and RFIs, you need a construction management platform, and no register replaces one. The row above says so.
The question is whether the compliance module inside it is doing the job or quietly costing you a day a week. That is testable without buying anything: pick three subcontractors, and find out how you would prove what cover they held on a given date last year, and who approved them. If the answer involves an inbox, the module is storage rather than a register.
They also work together
This is not usually a replacement decision. A contractor running a suite for the programme and SubbyFlow for the register is a normal arrangement, because the two are answering different questions — what is happening on site this week, and who is allowed on it.
SubbyFlow is not open to everyone yet. Join the waitlist and we will be in touch when there is a place.